Patients at hospitals and other care centers require controlled therapy administration and monitoring. Hospitals and care centers use a variety of types and brands of medical devices to assist in monitoring and therapy administration. For example, medical devices used to assist in therapy administration may include medical infusion pumps, pulse oximeters, cardiopulmonary monitors, and other therapy delivery and patient monitoring equipment. The various types and brands of medical devices each generally use differing, proprietary communication standards.
The proprietary standards employed by the different devices limit interoperability among the devices, making therapy administration difficult. During use of one or more of the medical devices, a caregiver may want to perform a number of actions related to the medical device. For example, a caregiver may wish to set parameters in a medical device based on the observed characteristics of the patient. Or, the caregiver may wish to view data gathered by a monitor. Due to the proprietary standards used by various medical devices, the caregiver may use a number of types of software and hardware to access the information gathered by the medical device needed to treat the patient.
Coordinating usage of medical devices also can be difficult. A single medical device can be programmed for administering different therapies and in different locations within a hospital. Usage records of multiple medical devices of varying types and in different hospitals may need to be compared. Similarly, the status of a medical device can be difficult to monitor because the devices are often in locations other than where the caregiver is located.